Category: rescue

I’ve always loved Wednesdays, they’re my favourite day of the week, and I’ve never really known why – maybe it’s something to do with my love of symmetry or because in senior school I always had the day off, I don’t know. I was thinking about this last night as I contemplated the distance to Friday – at least tomorrow is Wednesday, it may not be Friday but it’s my favourite day of the week, be happy, but why is it my favourite day, what do I have to look forward to about Wednesdays, it’s really just like any other week day now, and definitely not as exciting as Friday. So I went to bed expecting today to be just like every other Wednesday – get up, go to work, come home from work, be thankful that I’m another day closer to Friday. I left my house this morning to make the short journey to my bus stop expecting absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.

As I turned the corner into the street that my bus stop is on I noticed a possum in the middle of the road, and it was pretty easy to determine that it was dead, even from 15 metres away. I decided to do the decent thing and move it off the road – at least it wouldn’t be squished all over the place and someone in a nearby house would see it and call the council when they opened to have it removed. I could see a little blood, but no visible signs that she’d been attacked and there were no guts hanging out, but as I carried this stiff body back to the nature strip I noticed that she had a tiny, hairless baby nuzzled into her belly. There’s an animal management centre a few streets away from where I live, my bus goes past it every day, but I didn’t think they’d let me on the bus with a dead mother possum and her hairless infant, so I called the centre instead to see if they could come pick the two up. Of course, it couldn’t be as simple as all that and I got directed through to the emergency after hours line where I described the situation to a call centre staff member and was informed that I would need to contact the RSPCA for this kind of issue. It was then that I noticed that this baby’s head was still *inside* the mother – she had died in the middle of giving birth and now I had to deal with this just-born, pink wriggler who was still attached to his mama via the umbilical cord – definitely not what I had expected on my commute to work this morning! Nothing in my life has equipped me for handling this situation, I mean I’ve seen a few nature documentaries and TV shows, and I know a little bit about the whole birthing process in general, but really not enough to make any confident decisions about medical treatment for what I *think* was a ring-tail possum? All I could do was laugh as my bus drove past and I was still kneeling on the grass, trying to keep this little dude warm, and consulting the woman on the phone about the correct action to take in this situation. In the end I was put through to the RSPCA and they dispatched an ambulance to my house where I waited with this little guy, still attached to his dead mother since I couldn’t cut the cord in case I accidentally killed him.

So it’s been an exciting day already and I have officially made my first ever animal rescue – I guess you could consider this the first day of my career as an Animal Rescue & Re-homing Specialist – and also my first blog post. What a successful day it has been so far, and only just past 11:00 am. And a prime example of subconscious and conscious thoughts manifesting within reality – I had just been discussing my goals regarding a career working with animals last night and then boom! Animal rescue emergency first thing the next day. I’m feeling very justified in my decision to pursue a different career path, and very good-samaritan-y. Welcome to my life, and I hope you enjoy the ride.